


Hello, Goodbye

by BlueClue182



Series: STRANGER ANGST [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 500 Words Challenge, Angst, F/M, High School pregnancy, Poor kids, Pregnancy, jopper are teens, prequel fic, rating is for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueClue182/pseuds/BlueClue182
Summary: Teenage Jopper! Joyce has some news for Hopper and he does not take it well.





	1. Hello, Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> No beta. 500 words exactly but I like this one and want to write more soon.  
> Rating is for language and I guess situational drama? Who knows.
> 
> Part of my angst collection from these prompts: https://tmblr.co/ZNPvTy2Y5D7t1
> 
> Apparently Jonathan was born in 1967 and "Hello,Goodbye" didn't hit the charts until 1969 IDK get off my case.  
> EDIT: apparently Joyce was 25 when Jonathan was born and I can't do basic math. I'm keeping the title b/c Viva la Beatles.

She laid across the cement bench in the courtyard at school. It was quiet during classes and she was almost always left alone. Almost always. The door behind her opened and closed with a metallic thud, and something blocked out the sunlight from her face. 

“Got a light?” Without opening her eyes she pulled out her lighter and handed it to Jim. “Thanks” he mumbled around the cigarette between his lips. 

“Keep it.” 

“I know I forget my lighter a lot but it’s not that serious…”

“I’m quitting anyway.” 

Jim scoffed. “You’re the only person who smokes more than I do. You okay?”

“Stomach’s been off.” He kicked her legs and she pulled them up so he could sit down, then stretched them back out across his lap. 

“Nervous about graduation?” 

“Nah.” 

He pulled a huge drag from his cigarette. “You sure you don’t want some?” She shook her head and took a deep breath herself, then let it out slowly. 

“I’m pregnant.” She whispered. She was met with silence and opened her eyes to stare at him. 

Jim pursed his lips. He blinked a few times. The smoke came out of his nose, slow and steady. “No shit.” She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “Pregnant.” Another drag of the cigarette. Another slow release. “I’d love to say I was surprised.”

She sat up and turned away from him. “Don’t start.”

“This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, you know that, Joyce?”

“Shut up.”

“You know what, I won’t, actually, because you know Lonnie won’t stick around and if he does, he’s not gonna be a good dad let alone magically start being good to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“All you ever do is complain about him.” 

“Sorry for talking to my best friend when I have boyfriend troubles.”

“That’s another thing.”

“What?”

“The best friend thing. The thing where you keep Lonnie around mostly so you can’t give me a chance.”

“James Hopper. That is the most self-centered bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not. I can’t believe that I trusted you with something that’s tearing me up, that’s going to change my entire life, and you found a way to make it about yourself.”

“But it is, right? At least partially.”

“Yeah. I got pregnant with someone else’s baby specifically with you in mind.”

“Specifically, so you wouldn’t have to keep me in mind.”

“You know. This is why it never worked for us, and it never will.”

“Because I call you out on your shit?”

“Because you don’t actually care about me unless there’s a chance I’ll sleep with you.”

“Man, Joyce, you’re really mixed up in your head, you know that?”

“Yeah I’m the one with the problem.” She grabbed her bag and stack of books. 

“Where are you going?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not your business anymore.” She stormed off, slamming the door behind her. Jim flinched and ran a hand down his face. His shout filled the empty courtyard.


	2. Because I Know You Love Him So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonnie shows up at Hopper's place way too late at night to protect Joyce from entirely the wrong thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID MY MATH SO VERY WRONG.  
> I thought this was about Jonathan but I guess it's not even remotely. Joyce was 25 when his skeleton-ass was born, so any high school babies are no longer in the Byers family. Also this takes place very much in the late 1950s/early 1960s. I don't know why I thought the Stranger Parents were so much younger.  
> Rating for language.

_Joyce is pregnant. So what. She’s says she’s got Lonnie, but she’s gonna need me more than ever when he skips town or whatever he comes up with to leave her in the dust. God I hate him._

_And she wants_ _nothing to do with me. She wants me to fuck off and never talk to her again. I can’t believe she’s pregnant in the first place. I don’t want to believe. Lonnie would be the kind of guy who doesn’t even consider that shit. I figured Joyce was smart enough for the both of them. Guess I figured wrong. If I tried to talk to her, she’d get even more angry at me, maybe never talk to me again. As it stands now I’m sure she’ll get over it but what am I supposed to say when she wants to talk again? She’s not going to like any of the things I want to say. _

_They’ll probably get married and that’s that. I wonder if she’ll even finish school, especially since Lonnie’s out already. I’ve got nothing to do with her anymore. Probably won’t even get invited to the wedding. Definitely never meet the kid. Stupid, to think we’d be friends forever. Stupid._

Hopper fell asleep with his journal open on his bedside table. He’d always kept a journal to document events in his life—call it a habit passed down by having a detective for a father.

Hours later, something shook him so violently he awoke from a dream about an Earthquake.

“Hey. Asshole. Wake up.”

Hop swatted at whatever was poking him. “What the—” A figure loomed over his bed, backlit by his lamp so that it appeared as a dark blob. It took him a second to focus his vision and recognize the smell of a rain-soaked leather jacket and too much hair grease. “Lonnie? Why are you in my room?”

“You upsettin’ my girl?”

“Huh?”

“You makin’ Joyce cry? She’s upset. Says you two had a fight.”

“What else is new.”

“No. She’s never come to me cryin’ like this before.”

“You probably wouldn’ta noticed if she did.”

“What’d you say?” Lonnie swung for Hopper’s head, but he rolled out of the strike zone.

Hopper jumped to standing and stepped back, fists by his face. “What is _wrong_ with you?” He was only wearing his boxers and felt rather vulnerable to attack.

Lonnie swayed and then stilled. “Stay away from her.”

“No worries, man. We’re not even talking anymore.”

“GOOD.” Lonnie tripped over his own feet and grabbed the bedside table for stability. He knocked into the journal, and before Hopper could stop him, picked it up. “What is this? Why is my name in this?” Lonnie scanned the page and Hop lunged across the bed, pulling it from his hands. “Why does that say Joyce is pregnant?”

Hopper shoved the book under his pillow. “Because she told me she is.”

“I think if my girl was pregnant, I would know.” Lonnie threw the book down and got back into his best drunken approximation of a fighting stance.

Hopper sighed. “You’d think.” This was obviously going to last longer than he wanted it to. He grabbed his pajama pants off the floor and pulled them on.

“Why would she tell you before me?”

Hopper rubbed his face. “I don’t know, man. Try talking to _her_ for a change.”

Lonnie swung for Hopper’s head again, but he blocked and swung back. His punch landed on Lonnie’s shoulder, and the smaller man stumbled back. “Stop try’na punch me!” Jim shouted, annoyed that he’d been woken up to get dragged back into the drama he wanted desperately to avoid.

“There’s somethin’ weird between you.” Lonnie sulked, rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah god forbid two people are friends.”

“No. There’s somethin’ else goin’ on. You’re always together.” His words became more slurred.

“I told you not anymore. She doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s all yours.”

“See that’s what you don’t understand. She’s always _been_ all mine.” Lonnie shoved Hopper but it had very little effect. “She’s nothing to you.”

“Great. Got it covered. Can I go back to sleep now?”

Lonnie lunged at Hopper and grabbed for the collar to a shirt he wasn’t wearing. Instead, he slumped awkwardly, leaning his weight on Hop’s shoulders. “Why’d she tell you before me?”

“I DON’T KNOW.” Hopper shouted. But Lonnie was too drunk and too mad to accept this as an answer.

“TRY AGAIN.” Lonnie shouted back.

“Or what? I’m out of the game, okay? She doesn’t. Want. To Talk. To me. You win.”

“LISTEN TO ME.” Lonnie shook a finger in Hopper’s general direction. “You’re into my girl. And if she’s havin’ my baby, then she’s…we ARE gonna get married. So you stay the fuck away from my wife and from me or we’re gonna have PROBLEMS. You hear that, Jim?”

“You already got problems, Lon.” Hopper stood, ready for the fight that was coming. Lonnie squared off but wobbled in place. “You’ve got one chance to leave before I knock your lights out.” Lonnie thrust into thin air. Hopper reached for him, trying to end the fight before it began, but Lonnie swung again and his punch landed on the taller man’s chin. Hopper sighed. He knocked Lonnie in the temple, and he crumpled to the ground. “That’s what I thought.”

Hopper dragged Lonnie out to the front porch. He wiped his hands on his pants and left a note on the kitchen table, in case Lonnie was still there when his parents woke up. He was already tired of this shit, and it had barely begun. “I’m gonna need a huge mug of coffee in the morning.” Back in his room, he double checked the locks on his windows, and made sure the curtains blocked all of the already-emerging sunlight of a new day. Hopper crawled into bed, throwing the striped pants he’d been wearing back on the floor, and pulled the pillow over his head.


	3. Pinball Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce reflects on her new status, what it means for her future and her future relationships.

The sun dipped below the horizon and Joyce sat on the hood of her car. She watched it sink, wishing she could disappear right along with it. Without cigarettes Joyce had picked up an ancient habit back up, chewing fat wads of Double Bubble until her jaw ached. She carried a convenience store bag of it in her messenger bag all the time now. It had been one month since she last spoke to Jim. He’d kept his distance and, at first, she was grateful. Lonnie made it clear that her friendship with Jim was over, and for that too she was initially grateful. She could blame him for the distance, not her own stubbornness and not Jim’s…everything.

This was how it happened. How “promising young girls” got stuck in their hometown forever. This was how she became her mother, but at least her mother seemed fulfilled, like she’d had some choice in the matter. She couldn’t imagine herself satisfied with life in Hawkins. Life without Jim, if she was being honest, was the hardest to imagine.

It wasn’t Hawkins itself. It was the way everyone knew everyone else and had expectations. Everyone had you figured out before you had time to make mistakes and restart. She was so sure she’d prove them all wrong. She’d be a career woman and never wear an apron. Maybe she’d have an apartment in a building where she could blend in. She’d have a cat named Amos with orange and white fur. She’d learn to cook, not to feed a family and make sure her husband was fed when he walked through the door. A family would be nice eventually, but first she wanted to blow her budget on flowers she bought herself and spend weekends slowly wandering through museums. She’d become a whole person, and have a favorite bench in a public park.

When she had kids she wanted to casually impart wisdom. She wanted to be there for them, to be able to sigh lovingly and explain that everyone makes mistakes and it’s not the end of the world and hold them to her until they stopped being upset. One day she’d meet a man somewhere unexpected. Somewhere dignified. Somewhere they don’t serve beer in cans. When people asked how they met they’d laugh and exchange looks and tag team the story, tripping over each other’s sentences in a bid to tell the best parts first.

If she was going to lose Jim it would be for a good reason like that. Not because she was too stubborn and he was too stupid and they stopped paying attention.

Joyce chewed on her bubble gum. Her head felt like the inside of a pinball machine, where instead of silver balls there were errant thoughts clanging around, impossible to control. Somehow, Lonnie escaped the game entirely and only appeared in her thoughts when she considered how guilty she felt that he was absent. Then she couldn’t _stop_ thinking about him.

They were going to have a baby together, and still she held back. She’d slept with him—multiple times, in multiple places. She’d done so impulsively and out of spite and because he asked or insisted, but never because she loved him. She never laid next to him, overwhelmed with joy or warmed by a heart so full she couldn’t stand it. Even on their best days, Joyce held back. What held her back?

There were nine months to figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been away from this story forever but I missed it and some of you were still commenting on it. (Thank you, friends!)  
> So I'm back and planning on finishing. Unsure if it'll end happy of not. *ASCII shrug dude*


End file.
